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2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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What’s the most difficult question you’ve been asked as a maintenance instructor?
Blye Widmar
"Where are the prints?!"
This was the final question in an onslaught of verbal feedback, comments, and critiques I received from my students back in 2019. I had two years of instructor experience and was teaching a class that had been meticulously rehearsed in preparation for an accreditation visit. I knew the training material well and transferred that knowledge effectively enough for all the students to pass the class. As we wrapped up, I asked the students how they felt about my first big system-level class, and they did not hold back.
“Why was the exam from memory when we don’t work from memory in the plant?” “Why didn’t we refer to the vendor documents?” “Why didn’t we practice more on the mock-up?” And so on.
Robert P. Schuman
Nuclear Technology | Volume 65 | Number 3 | June 1984 | Pages 422-431
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT84-A33398
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two leach-resistant waste forms, a borosilicate glass developed for the high-level waste calcines from reprocessed uranium fuels and iron-enriched basalt, a fused ceramic developed for americium plus plutonium wastes, have been leach tested. The specimens were leached in distilled deionized water and in a saturated salt brine at ∼30°C for 28, 63, and 126 days; one set was leached in a gamma field of ∼104 Gy/h (∼106 rad/h). The specimens were simulated high-level waste forms prepared from inactive ingredients and spiked with 22Na, 60Co, 95Zr-95Nb, 137Cs, 133Ba, 144Ce, and 241Am. The components were melted and heat treated, and specimens were sawed from the solidified material. The gamma field increased the leach rates in water (pH ∼3 after irradiation) typically by a factor of ∼10 and increased the leach rates in salt brine (pH decreased much less during irradiation) by a factor of ∼2. The leach rate of cobalt from glass was about seven times that from iron-enriched basalt. The leach rates usually decreased with increasing leach time. Both waste forms were still leach resistant in irradiated brine at 30°C, <2 µg/cm2·day, and fairly leach resistant in irradiated water at 30°C, <25 µg/cm2·day.